No Law in the Land: (Knights Templar 27) by Michael Jecks

Author:Michael Jecks [Jecks, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: _NB_fixed, blt, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9781472219886
Google: XTMYAwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Headline
Published: 2014-02-27T16:43:15+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Exeter

The castle was ever a bustling place, but today it was still more busy than usual, and Baldwin gazed about him with surprise as he entered the gates. Grabbing the arm of a clerk hurrying past with an immense pile of rolls in his arms, he asked what the reason was for all the activity.

‘There is to be a court of gaol delivery,’ the clerk snapped, snatching his arm away and hurrying on, clutching at his records as though fearing that they might be prised from his arms before he could deliver them.

Baldwin shook his head. The court might well delay matters. If he was to try to interrupt its decisions while it was sitting, the sheriff might feel it inconvenient at least. Many sheriffs could take umbrage at such interruptions, and Baldwin had no desire to set off on the wrong foot with the man.

‘Come,’ he snapped, and hurried over the courtyard.

Rougemont Castle was a sadly dilapidated fortress. The towers were in a poor state of repair, and parts of the curtain wall had been rebuilt recently after a collapse. Until thirty years ago, many of the towers had been without their roofs, and three had fallen twenty years before. The rubble from two still formed piles near the wall where they had stood. It was not a picture of martial or judicial intimidation.

However, it was the centre of justice for the whole of Devon, and the hall at the far end of the yard was the site of the courts held in the king’s name and in the presence of the sheriff, his deputy for the area.

Baldwin passed into the great chamber, and was relieved to see that the sheriff and his advisers were not yet in their seats. Some men mingled, indulging in self-important posturing behind the tables, while clerks set out their inks and reeds, knives and quills, ready to begin to record the great decisions that would soon be taken. Meanwhile there was a steady clanking and rattling of chains from the chambers nearby, where the prisoners stood in abject terror, waiting to learn whether they were to live or die today.

‘Where is the sheriff?’ Baldwin asked a guard, and the man looked as though he might tell Baldwin to leave the chamber and take up an affair with his own mother, before he saw the urgency and resentment in Baldwin’s eyes.

Soon Baldwin and Edgar were waiting in a chamber that was considerably smaller. They had been asked for their weapons, and Baldwin felt oddly undressed here without his sword. For some reason, it felt very peculiar to be preparing to meet another knight without it.

It was perfectly normal for a man to be asked to relinquish his weapons at another man’s hall. After all, assassination was an unpleasant reality, and one means of defending against such an attack was to ensure that visitors were unarmed. But it was more than that – it was also a sign of respect to the master of

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